What Is Desire
by springandbysummerfall
Summary: A one-shot which explores power, sex, and trust using popular themes of b/v fandom. Ye been warned.


_Dedicated to Toncy_

* * *

Vegeta's palm skimmed its way down her flat stomach and wriggled under the waist of her shorts, his thick fingers toying with the stretchy top of her panties before continuing on its path to part her slick folds and sink forcefully into her.

The refrigerator door was cool and smooth against her back as his hand worked its magic from beneath her shorts and she clutched at his arms, panting.

"You're so wet," he breathed in her ear, and she felt his lips twist into a smirk against the curve of her ear.

She whined against his bicep, her head lolling against the fridge, where she stared at the shiny kitchen sink behind him, unseeing.

How had they wound up like this again?

For the last few months it had become a sickness shared between them. She never knew when or where he'd seek her out.

The first time was against the hot, tumbling dryer, laundry abandoned; the last time it had been on the kitchen table after dinner, when Bulma's mother had left to take a phone call. As Bunny's heels met the dining room linoleum again with their familiar click, Vegeta was walking away, the patio door shutting behind him, and Bulma was shakily tucking her hair behind her ears, hurrying to look busy picking up dinner plates.

His fingers worked her up into a frenzy, and she rocked against them, eyes rolling back into her head as her body ached for more than he was giving her.

She pressed for territory, surprising him by slipping her tongue into his mouth, curling it around his, his own quickly vying against hers eagerly.

His other hand hitched her tank over her breasts roughly, and he pulled away from her lips to scrape his teeth lightly over her nipple, which hardened between his teeth with no resistance.

"I want you inside me," she moaned.

But Vegeta kept pumping those Kami-forsaken fingers inside her, his thumb teasing her folds as his tongue drew calligraphy over her nipples and he stared his voracious black stare upwards at her, stunning her with the well-practiced efficiency of any good predator.

He was painfully good at multitasking.

That's when Bulma heard the front door open, and the couple jerked apart, Vegeta taking back his wet fingers as Bulma yanked her shirt down and buttoned her shorts.

But not before he surprised her with the press of his fingers to her lips, as if he were silencing her. She glanced up at him questioningly.

Her smell curled around her nostrils then, and he smirked evilly at her, watching her kiss-stained mouth patiently.

For a split second, her eyes narrowed; but then her tongue parted her lips, and she moved it slowly around his fingers as his smirk grew with satisfaction.

By the time her parents shuffled into the kitchen, arms loaded with groceries, Vegeta and Bulma were already leaving out separate doors.

* * *

Bulma remembered the first time he'd let her touch him.

She looked at the clock: 1:55 again.

Bulma's fingers trailed down the soft ridges of her abdomen, over the hills of her ribs and through the valley of her belly to make way, fingertip by fingertip, into the forest of her soft pubic hair.

She emitted a heavy sigh and turned onto her side, staring at the clock, waiting intensely for it to give her an answer to her restless melancholy.

_1:56_.

With a brief burst of motivation, Bulma jumped out of bed and paced her room, its central French doors thrown open to the moonlight of a nearly full moon. The covers had been kicked off in the thick summer heat, and they lay unwanted and tangled at the foot of the bed. The curtains rustled gently as Bulma gathered the hair at the nape of her neck and bunched it against the back of her head.

Too late, a bead of sweat drifted, unhurried, between her shoulder blades, downward.

Bulma's pacing came to a stop in front of her large dresser mirror, its ornate white detailing referencing the innocent whimsy of girlhood that lay prone in her past, unfamiliar to her.

Her gaze raked over the dip of her pelvis and the ambitious swell of her hips in the moonlight, which cast many shadows as it bleached the colors around her.

Experimentally, she cocked a hip, slowly oh-so-slowly drawing her fingertips up her belly as her other hand relinquished her hair. It fell into a frazzled mess around her face.

She stared at the strange face in the mirror, the pink, parted lips, the delicate nose, the heavy breasts and the deep, sapphire eyes giving her the apprehending, ravenous stare of the needy.

Her body was crooning a sing song of hunger that her mind hadn't yet deciphered.

Blowing air forcefully through her lips, she turned on her heels, when she heard a groan waver across the threshold of her French doors.

Nearly jumping out of her skin, she turned towards the sound.

The curtains rippled rhythmically as the moon carved a pale path between the cocked French doors.

Bulma's body reacted before her mind could catch up. She walked back over to her dresser and pulled the drawer open smoothly, pulling the first thing on she found.

Her bare feet tread silently over the carpet and onto the warm stones of the outside terrace, before making their way without hesitation down the stairs and into the lush grass.

It wasn't until she was approaching the figure with its back up against Capsule 4 that she realized she might be living dangerously.

Slowing cautiously, she sunk to her knees in front of Vegeta, twisting her hair over a shoulder and inspecting him unobtrusively.

The Saiyan sat hunched over, his right hand resting palm side up on his knee. She examined the gash that lay it open with the growing familiarity of a medic.

"Are you okay?" Her voice seemed to cut through them both, and Vegeta raised his head to meet her gaze with energetic hostility.

"Just fine. Saiyans can take a little pain."

"Yeah, well, you don't look like you're doing so well." She shut up then, having learned the Saiyan Prince didn't appreciate having his weaknesses pointed out to him, despite her stubborn need to prove him wrong with every occasion.

She sat back on her butt and leaned back against Capsule 4 beside him, looking up at the starry sky and running her fingers through the grass, the blades tickling her thighs.

"Why are you still here," he snapped.

Her gaze locked on to his reproachfully. "Doing the thing I'm good at, apparently. Bothering you."

The Saiyan snorted. "You're hardly very good at that."

"Oh yeah?" Bulma snipped, hackles rising.

Lost in the heat of the moment -the heat he seemed to instill in every moment -she grabbed the hand that lay limply at his knee, gripping it from the bottom and clutching it tightly, burrowing her fingers between the webbing of his own while being careful -barely- of the stigmata lying in his palm.

"How is it that these wounds get less of a reaction than I do?"

"Because I'm lucky enough they don't have a mouth on them as big as yours!" He barked, pulling at his hand weakly.

Bulma's grip tightened. "Yeah, well, even if all I'm good at is nagging you, I'm the best at what I do."

Withs surprising speed, he rolled her, pinning her onto her back. His vicious black eyes gleaming, his mouth twisted into a sneer.

"You're best served cold with a side of cocktail sauce," he threatened roughly.

His hand was still wrapped up in hers, and his hot blood slicked their palms.

"I could eat you for dinner. I've had men laid open for less."

"I wouldn't have you over for chicken," she bit out, her heart a pitter patter with terror.

His eyes narrowed at her, and he sat up quickly, standing gracefully despite his shaky legs.

"Fucking harpy," he spat as he strode to the main building, limping almost imperceptibly.

She sat up, her left hand supporting her weight behind her, her right clutched in front of her, painted with Vegeta's blood.

She hopped up and strode after him, sweeping down the hallway and catching the door just as it started closing behind him.

"What the hell, woman?" He looked over his shoulder at her, appalled.

She strode up to him and clasped his injured hand. She had no idea what she was doing. Goaded on like a sailboat in a storm by a howling wind, there was no controlling her destination, only her chances of staying afloat.

She pressed his hand to her heart, the blood slicking over her collar bone and dripping down her chest.

"Feel me, Vegeta?" She asked wildly. "I'm flesh and blood. Just the same as you. Feel my heart beat beneath your hand? I'm alive, just like you!" His warm hand rested heavily against her breast, his hot breath dousing her like a tiger's silent warning as she glared up into his face.

"Just because you're Saiyan doesn't make you immune to death. Just because I'm human doesn't make me any less worth living. Are we clear?"

His expression shifted between shock and simmering rancor.

She lowered his hand from her chest and pulled him by the wrist towards his bathroom door.

He didn't budge.

Bulma looked over her shoulder with agitation.

"Come on! Before you bleed on my carpet!"

He allowed her to lead him into his bathroom.

She flipped on the light and scoured the drawers for first aid items. Not surprisingly, they rested at top, and she plucked out the gauze before hitting the faucet on with the butt of her hand.

Testing the temperature a few times, she then dipped his hand under the water, using her thumbs to massage and cleanse the blood from the lines of his palm, and patiently plucking bits of shrapnel out of the deep gash.

Shutting off the faucet and grabbing at the gauze, she pulled the dressing tight before wrapping it around his square palm, like a spider spinning out a web, and then tore it with her teeth before smoothing the sticky end down.

Her eyes met his in the mirror and froze.

They were both wild and dirty, Vegeta a russet dervish, all black and gold and angles and muscle, and she, disheveled and smeared with the wild man's blood.

She moved to grab for the washcloth to swipe at the smear of blood across her chest.

His hand stilled her own, the other flicking the light out.

Their eyes met again and readjusted to the moonlight.

"Leave it," he commanded, gently pushing the hand of hers clutching the washcloth down to rest against the sink. "It looks good on you."

"Why did you turn the light off?" Bulma questioned dumbly. The real question lay hidden beneath. What are you going to do to me?

"I'm a predator. I see better in the dark." He lectured her, his voice a low rumble. "The dark looks good on you, too."

They stood there gazing at the other in the sticky moonlight, his blood on her chest like a mark of passage and conquest.

* * *

She had fallen asleep reading again. Her book lay open on her chest, the spine well worn. She had read and reread and reread and reread the same sentence until throwing her arm over her eyes to watch the hundreds of stars blaze and die out behind her eyes with surrender. Her ever persistent restlessness making its slow crawl into every aspect of her life.

The sun had sunk below the horizon, creating one last startling hue of vivid purple before leaving this side of the world for greener pastures.

Bulma sat up, dropping her book onto the ground and rubbing at the knot in her neck.

The evening had grown cool against her bare skin. A shiver racked her as her feet plodded forward towards her bedroom's French doors, thrown open to the brisk, late summer air.

As she stepped inside, a shadow awaited her, a regal silhouette standing imposingly at the end of her bed.

Her heart beat slowed upon realizing it was just Vegeta, before it picked up again.

Arms crossed, he sauntered slowly over to her before filling her vision and grasping her hips in his gloved hands.

"I want you on the bed. Now," he commanded quietly, his gravelly voice causing her to shudder like nails over her skin.

Without question, she moved to yank at her swimsuit top string, when his hand closed around hers, preventing her.

"No," he admonished her, tonelessly. "I'm in charge. Don't do anything that I don't tell you to."

Accepting her silent acquiescence, he let go of her hand.

"Now bend over."

Bent over the bed, her elbows digging into the quilt and her breasts grazing cool cotton, Bulma felt his knee nudge her legs apart.

She heard him drop to his knees, felt his gloved hands grip her ankles before making their way leisurely up her calves and flattening out over her thighs on their journey upwards. A warm breeze wafted in as soft as silk against her bottom as he urged her bikini bottom to the side with a thumb, gently prying apart her bottom as his covetous mouth dove in for the kill.

"Oh, and, woman?"

"Yes?" She stifled a throaty moan as his hot breath hit her already wet core in the cool air.

"Fix my bots when we're done here."

* * *

She knew it was Fall when her mother pointed out the bits of leaves caught in her hair, and Bulma tittered nervously and blamed all of the raking she hadn't been doing.

She had only been trying to alert him that his dinner was getting cold. He had spent from dawn til dusk in the gravity room without rest, which was unusual, given his Saiyan appetite. An appetite which managed to extend beyond eating, she noted absently.

Rapping on the cool metal, she listened as the engines whirred down, taking a break from whipping gravity into a hostile force. The door opened with a rush of air.

Vegeta, drenched in sweat, regarded her witheringly from just beyond the threshold.

"What do you want."

Beads of sweat made their way with resolve from one sharp trench of muscle to the next, thoughtlessly following the others that came before them to repose at his belly button with temptation, and then slide sensuously into the V of his lower abdomen, where his shorts rode under his hips precariously, challenging anyone to protest.

"You missed dinner. I thought you might want to eat."

Vegeta cast her a scorching look of black hunger.

Like any hunter of prey, Saiyans would exploit any observable weakness.

"I don't think I've worked up enough of an appetite yet."

Bulma was already sinking to her knees in the leaves, leaves that had lost their grip on life and sailed, sighing, towards the earth.

Her fingers hooked in the waist of his shorts and pulled them down over his already engorged cock, which sprung free imperially.

However, Vegeta had his own weakness.

She wrapped her hand around his manhood, dragging herself down to the base of him, the silky hot skin sliding over hardened muscle. Languidly, as if caught in daydreams, she stared down his thick head before lapping up his weeping precum. Her mouth made its way down his length without hurry until her lips met the soft skin at its base and the tip of his penis slid zealously past her tonsils. Leaves fell around them, and one landed in her hair, adorning her like a bloom tucked behind her ear, which Vegeta promptly crushed as he gripped her hair, a low moan escaping his throat.

It was her.

As he bucked against her mouth, battering her tonsils as her fingers slid up and down his spit slicked shaft, she felt him harden even further, pulsing in agreement as her own core throbbed in response.

"Swallow it," he demanded, and she didn't bother telling him she wouldn't have it any other way as his hips jerked out of control between her hands and his salty sweet seed spurted and coated her mouth. She spun her tongue around his softening manhood, disengaging from his thick cock with an involuntary smack of her lips before peering up at him with satisfaction as he smiled down at her with torrid promise.

It was a position she'd give everything to fill.

* * *

She couldn't explain it, she just knew something was wrong.

Bulma crawled out of bed groggily and instintctively pulled on some jeans. Padding down the hall, she stopped in front of Vegeta's bedroom door before knocking lightly with her knuckles.

"Vegeta?" She called quietly.

After receiving no response, she turned the knob and poked her head in. The room sat empty, the bed crisply made, just as he left it every morning.

Ignoring the wave of unease that hit her belly, Bulma closed the door softly and made her way downstairs.

The kitchen light glowed dimly on an empty room. Bulma's frown deepened and she went to the back door, shoving her feet into her sneakers and opening the door as she pulled on her coat.

Her sneakers crunched the snow as she traversed her way towards the Gravity Room, which loomed ominously from across the yard, a shadow against the cranberried December sky. The wintry night was silent and as empty as she imagined life inside a snow globe might be, and a few snowflakes landed daintily on her face as she hurried her pace toward the GR, the few inches of snow resisting, sucking at her unlaced shoes.

By the time she saw him, she was running. He lay in the snow on his side with his broad muscled back facing her, and for a moment, her mind argued that all of that starkly crimson blood staining the snow couldn't have come from his body, because he looked as untouched as a sleeping relic in amber.

But as she fell to the snow beside him, running her eyes up and down him as she shook him frantically, she realized the wound was under his ribs against the snow, which gave into the weight of his body forgivingly.

She shook him harder, crying out his name, before running her hands through her hair and pulling at it madly, glancing around for answers.

She was racing back inside the house and barking at the kitchen bots before she could blink, her sneakers pressing snow as she raced back over to Vegeta's limp body, looking over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure the bots were following.

They made their way silently through the snow, only the whirr of their wheels and their impersonal blinking red lights giving their presence away behind her.

Tediously, with her heart in her throat, she instructed each one how to pick up the rapidly waning Saiyan, and she struggled not to shout at them and confuse them as they picked the Prince up with automatic objectivity.

When she was sure they each had a firm grip on him, she led the way back to the main compound, holding the door open for them with impatience.

Their movement triggered the automatic fluorescents in the med bay, and Bulma worked furiously to lower a cot to help the stout little bots transfer him without injuring him further. Once he was on, Bulma shooed them away and grabbed at IVs and bags of morphine, flipping on heart rate monitors and the oxygen tank as she slapped him with diodes and gently pulled the oxygen mask over his hair and face, trying not to look at his slack, helpless expression.

His bronze skin was ivory and frighteningly cool. With the lights, she could see now that a blast had ripped open his side, and she choked, clearly seeing blood seep between the gore lying against his side.

Stilfing her surging stomach, she tucked a blanket around him before a long night putting him back together, trying not to get tears in his open wound with single minded intensity.

* * *

_She noticed him hovering on the boundary, a maelstrom against all of the festivity, paper lanterns and house lights skewing his features as her father's outdoor company cocktail party reached its apex._

_She watched him out of the corner of her eye, as he watched her or the party or both. Sipping at her wine, it took nothing from her to set it on one of the many tableclothed picnic tables laden with food and step carefully around visiters, saying her hellos and small talking when necessary before confronting the shadow man at the murky limits of the party._

_"What's up?" She asked him, the swell of laughter and music reaching them weakly._

_He didn't answer at first, regarding her sternly, and then letting his gaze drift once again over her father's party. She pulled at the hem of her cocktail dress self consciously while his gaze lingered on the foreign world merrily celebrating the inconsequential in front of him._

_He caught her off guard when his hand gripped the side of her face soundly and he kissed her. It took nothing from her to melt into the kiss, their tongues dancing in a centuries old waltz. Her hands moved to his dense waist as he plundered her mouth more and more ruthlessly._

_The sound of a woman's laughter reached them as he yanked out her hair tie and ran his hand impatiently through her braided hair as he pressed her up against the wall of the compound._

_It was only when he had wrested her panties from her hips, tangling them in his grip and lapping feverishly at her center that she dimly recognized the music die down and her father's voice ramble from the podium with its usual calm timbre._

_It was nothing for her to ride the crest of desire building in her belly, threatening to sweep them away in its tidal violence._

_"I'm coming," she confessed hoarsely as his tongue swept her into oblivion and her father announced her to the empty podium to a wave of applause._

* * *

_What an asshole_, she seethed, _a complete asshole_. Bulma stormed through her closet tossing dresses this way and that before stomping over to her bed and flinging her clothes at it.

"What's the problem, woman," Vegeta asked boredly as he touched down inside her garden doors, his hair springing back from flight.

Striding in, he sent her a second glance as she tugged up the delicate silk hose with exasperation, mumbling under her breath as she struggled with snapping the suspenders of her garter belt to the tops of the pale thigh hi stockings.

Vegeta's hand stilled her own from behind her and she recoiled from it in agitation as he cooly, adeptly connected each suspender to fine lace.

"I'm not in the mood, Vegeta," she growled, crossing her arms over her chest, succeeding in only amusing him as the action mashed her breasts together.

As he finished, he took the liberty of running his fingertip up her inner thigh and over the cleft of her nether lips, which, to her dismay, pressed against the crotch of her narrow panties in anticipation.

She growled in response, earning a smirk from him before he flopped back onto her bed, his head pillowed in his crossed arms.

"Where are you going dressed up like that," he asked, shutting his eyes in a way that irritated Bulma with the sheer confidence of it.

"I've got to go to the Capusle Corp Annual Gala," she huffed, slipping on some earrings before running a shade of deep red lipstick over her full mouth.

"Normally you don't shut up about those things," he complained into his arm, which he had thrown over his face against the light.

"Yeah, well, normally I don't have to go with the world's biggest jerk." She slammed her brush down on her dresser before curling her hair upward and sticking a pin in it irritably.

One of his eyes slit open. "And you're not talking about me," he asked drolly.

"I'm talking about Yamcha. The dickhead. The audacity!" She cursed as she tugged her sheath dress out from beneath the weight of his legs and tried to make heads or tails out of it before stepping into it.

"I don't like you talking about the weakling like that," Vegeta stated drowsily.

Her eyebrow rose as she pulled the gown over her hips and adjusted the bust before zipping it behind her.

"I thought you detested Yamcha," she commented wryly, struggling with the last few inches of zipper between her shoulder blades.

Suddenly he was right behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder and zipping her up the last few inches easily.

"I just don't appreciate 'dick' and the weakling's name being in the same sentence together."

Matching his smirk, she turned her head, rubbing her face against his smooth cheek.

"You know what," he quipped, so congenially that Bulma became immediaetly alarmed.

He unzipped her energetically.

"No, Vegeta-" she cried.

"Oh, yes," he crooned, pushing her dress down her body to pool at her feet and throwing her belly first over his shoulder.

"Vegeta!" She bellowed.

"Now look at that," he droned, and she met his eyes fiercely in her dresser mirror.

His crooked smile was purely sinister.

"I know what I want to do," he hummed, snapping the thin strap of her thong panties, briefly stinging her privates.

"Oh no," she protested. "Oh, no, Yamcha will be here soon to pick me up. I've got to go!"

"Ooohhh reeeally?" He thrummed, nearly bursting with depraved thrill. "Perfect," he purred.

Before she had time to consider an escape plan, Vegeta had thrown her onto the bed, where she landed on her belly with an 'oomph,' his weight sinking into the mattress behind her. His fingers sunk into her hair and freed it from the pin, causing her tousled hair to fall over her face before he gripped a lock of it and lightly pulled, forcing her head upwards.

It was then that she understood what he planned to do. She met his eyes in the mirror as he loomed over her backside on his knees, her breasts spilling out of her strapless pushup as she jerked against his hold on her on all fours.

"I don't have time for you to admire yourself in the mirror," she grit out.

"Isn't that cute." His fingertips ran oh so softly over the curve of her ass, almost reassuringly. "Here I am," his grip loosened on her hair, and he bent over her, trailing soft kisses down her shoulder, "preparing to save your pathetic little world from certain destruction, but I have time for you." His mouth hovered over the small of her back before meeting her stunned gaze in the mirror with unreadable mirth.

She felt the weight shift behind her, the bed jerk slightly, his grip on her hair released, and then he was pulling her into his lap, her bare back against his wide chest, readjusting her so that his thickening cock stood between her legs, resting against her pubis. His hands were in her hair again, pulling her head to the side so that he could suck the graceful curve of her neck.

To her own irritation, she felt herself begin to relax against him.

His fingers trailed from her hip to the soft blue hair at the juncture of her thighs, then under her panties, to lightly stroke her lips. She let out a little sigh and arched her arm behind her, threading her own fingers into his coarse hair. He pinched one of her nipples between his knuckles while he slipped a finger into her silky core, which had already prepared its own wet trail for him to follow, like a conquering hero. He dipped his finger slightly into her, and she let out a heavy sigh before pushing against it, curling her fingers rhythmically into his hair, resting her head against his broad shoulder.

His finger languidly teasted the pearl just inside of her, he gripped her breast tightly as he sank his finger into her and ran his teeth over her shoulder. She cried out in pleasure and pushed her hips to meet his hand, and his tongue traced up her neck before curling around her ear as he pumped his hand gently inside her. His cock was between her legs, his pants pulled down just past his hips in order to free his cock, and she took it in her hand with open desire, running her hand over the smooth length of him to the petal soft skin of his testicles underneath.

Vegeta let out an intimidating moan from deep inside his throat, and his cock twitched in her hand. Bulma smiled and ran her palm back up his cock, skimming her hand over his head, precum slicking the lines of her palm, heart and life, fate and head.

"I want you," she breathed.

She felt him smirk against her shoulder as he worked another finger inside her.

His other hand enfolded her own and began guiding hers gently up and down, strangely exciting her as he jacked himself off with her hand.

"That's not enough for me, woman," he teased. "I'm going to need a little more than that if you want me to continue."

"You wouldn't dare," she said wthout thinking, the heiress scoffing at her houseguest's ultimatum.

Vegeta's fingers slid out of her, leaving her empty, tight, craven.

She met his smirk in the mirror with alarm. "Where are you going."

His hand released hers, scathing her.

"I do dare," he growled in her ear.

"Don't leave," she pleaded, and then threw her hand over her mouth in horror.

His grin grew wicked.

He stretched behind her, all ripppling muscle, like a wild cat.

She felt her thighs get slick. A tiny whine escaped her throat upon realizing she was losing control.

"Do you need me, little Earthling?" He flicked her nipple with his fingernails, which hardeneed painfully in response.

She grit her teeth to keep the truth from coming out, snapping her head to the side so she couldn't be mesmerized by the eyes pinning her in the mirror.

"Mm-mm," she denied, tightening her hands into fists against her thighs.

He delicately pulled her panties to the side, the head of his cock rubbing against her opening enticingly, the beast in him always vying with the elite for control. He gathered her breasts in his hands and squeezed them together, pulling gently at her nipples. His hot mouth sucked at her earlobe, and she shivered when the cool air struck her where his mouth had abandoned her.

Slowly, his dick breached her opening, slowly stretching her entrance as his other fingers spread her lips apart.

"Admit you need me, little Earthling," he breathed in her ear, and he pushed his dick inside her a little more before pulling out slightly.

A breathy cry escaped her lips.

"You want me inside of you, fucking you. You need me to fuck you, like a bad little slut, huh?"

Bulma's eyes flew open at the insult, but his thick cock sunk back into her, and her eyes fluttered shut again.

"You've been fucked like a good girl too long, isn't that it? Isn't that why you're really upset with the weakling? He doesn't treat you like you want to be treated. He doesn't treat you like the hot blooded woman you are."

He pulled out of her again and tapped his length against her sensitive lips, causing her to jerk, then moan despondently.

"He wants me to marry him," she groaned, her hands flitting against and rubbing her soft inner thighs, his thighs, trying their hardest not to touch him, touch herself.

Vegeta's ministrations paused.

Bulma's eyes slit open and regarded him under hooded lids, where he stared at the floor with deadly intent, before covering the expression quickly.

"Is that so," he drawled. He shoved the head of his dick inside her and he ripped her panties clean off her hips, tossing them over his shoulder. "Well, we can't have that, can we."

His other hand drifted down the soft V of her womanhood and, to her surprise, kept trailing down-down, down, beneath her arousal. Slowly, teasingly, he begain to rub her there, and Bulma was surprised when she moaned throatily, and her legs gaped wider in response.

He slid the first inch of his cock inside of her and held it there, and she tightened in rapture.

"FuckmeVegeta," she hammered out. Her hands escaped her control and rubbed at her clit, running her other hand over her face and through her hair in breathy exasperation.

"I can't do that, sweetheart," he purred, "not until you beg me. Not until you admit you need me. You need this dick inside you, pounding you. You need this mouth on those luscious tits. You need me in a way you've never needed anyone else before." He paused to trail his tongue around her hair line and confront her from her other side. She must truly be condemned by Kami, because all she had was one devil on her shoulder jeering the other one on. "Am I right?"

She exhaled, and met his black, black eyes in the mirror. "Yes."

"You want me more than you ever wanted the weakling."

"Yes," her voice broke.

"You need me to cum on that tight pink pussy of yours, you need me to cum inside you, in your mouth, you need me to want you."

She nodded brokenly.

"Vegeta," she exhaled as he shoved himself in her to the hilt, his cock brushing her cervix with painful pleasure.

"That's what I want to hear. I want to hear my name. I want you to scream it when I make you cum, and I'm going to make you cum hard on my dick. I want to hear you say my name. Got it?"

As he pounded her from beneath her, her walls slowly embracing him, clamping around him as he gripped her breast in one hand and worked her pussy wildly with the other hand, she understood him further, something that she suspected he didn't quite understand himself.

He found comfort in dominating her. He needed -and she needed- to endure his unruly sexual appetite.

But he couldn't have it both ways.

He needed her, too.

In the same manner that she had seen Goku appraoch a challenge a hundred times before, Vegeta was aroused by the backbone in her, and kept coming back because she always brought more to the table, naturally.

But he was going to stay, because he was Saiyan, and Saiyans loved to own the thing they had put up a good fight to win.

She grit her teeth together as his pace picked up, slamming against her hips with controlled, circular movements, one gloved hand on her hip, the other wrapped up in her hair. Her core began clenching, a pleasure created from so many little earthquakes, a tempest building up inside her about to tumble her down. Her head hung loosely as he held her upright, jackhammering into her petite frame with exacting lust.

"Say it, woman," he grit.

Her head rolled forward and back against his shoulder when he took her face firmly in his hands, forcing her to look at him in the mirror, where he'd been watching her building pleasure all this time.

"Scream it," he whispered frantically.

She emitted a little cry as he pulled her legs further apart and began losing his control on his desire, pumping wildly inside her.

"Vegeta," she moaned as he worked inside her.

"Vegeta," as he rolled her pussy lips between his fingers, and steps sounded on the stairs outside her door.

"Vegeta," she yelped as a torrent of pleasure wracked her. She stiffened under it before surrendering, slamming her body with a tidal force as she crashed against him, gripping his hair tightly. It buffeted them, trying to tear her away and down, down into a shadowy abyss where she didn't know herself, only desire.

The sound of her bedroom door opening sent Vegeta over the edge. Her hair fell into her face as she clenched her eyes against another strong wave of pleasure. "Fuck me!" She shrieked as one last torrential shock gripped her and she threw her head back, howling in husky desire.

"She'll be ready to go in a minute," she heard from Vegeta distantly, his chest vibrating against her as she rode out the last of the little shocks, keening with satsifaction.

She slumped against him, where they rested together for a timeless moment under heavy lids.

He slowly lowered her onto her belly, her head pillowing on her awaiting forearms. She was boneless, heavy, her head empty, her core pulsing hard and rhythmically.

He bent over her and kissed her at the nape of her neck before thrusting himself to the hilt one more time.

She cried out with pleasure, cocking her hips in the air to meet his.

"You've got a ball to attend," he reminded her huskily, his gloved hand on her hips, running up and down her back. He leaned his weight onto his outstretched arm, nibbling on her ear, his suited chest grazing her back. "I think I fixed your weakling problem."

She slowly looked up from beneath heavy lids into the mirror, her eyes smoky with eyeliner and mascara, her ruby mouth plump and slack, the silhouette of her narrow waist flaring out to the wide hips that fit so well inside his own thick, muscled ones, and noticed her bedroom door ajar.

"What?" She asked dreamily, running her hand behind her and down her rump, parting her thighs to offer him better access without any thought.

He slid out of her and then plunged back in, earning a strangled cry from her. He gripped her dangling breasts as he drew oh-so-precise, unhurried circles inside her.

"Exactly," he purred, a hungry panther freed of his cage, dragging his kill back down with him.

* * *

Bulma folded the last shirt crisply, placing it neatly on the pile of clothes stacked on the dryer before gathering them into her arms and shuffling down the hall with them.

She leaned her weight against Vegeta's door and it opened with a stubborn pop. She strolled to his dresser, his clothes light and soft in her arms. All the doors of Capsule Corporation had swelled with the spring humidity. It was still early in the afternoon, and the windows had all been cracked open, and from them she could hear the everpresent hum of the gravity room generator as Vegeta tried killing himself with a lunatic's passion under several hundred pounds of gravity.

His drawer pulled open with gentle resistance, and she tucked his shirts and training shorts neatly inside before heading to the closet with the jeans and the button down shirts she rarely had the pleasure of seeing him in or watching him take off. She flicked on the closet light, humming, and plucked a hanger from the rod before shoving it into the neck of his shirt.

That's when it caught her eye: lying on the floor, glinting dully, looking as if it had tumbled from his chest plate, which had been thrown against the far wall of the closet.

Slowly, she bent her knees and reached out to touch it, and pulled back. Glancing around nervously, she clutched her hand against her chest with defensiveness. Yet, all that greeted her was the occasional shrill chirp of birds celebrating the return of the sun and reproduction, the airy silence of the house, and the toneless hum of the GR from a distance, the same sounds as just a moment ago.

She willed her heart to slow, taking a few calming breaths.

The Prince had a habit of springing out at her out of nowhere.

He also had a skill for detecting deceit, and with him, she wasn't good at anything but transparency. His proximity just seemed to shock her out of any of the dissembling she could muster up. When he was around, she was just Bulma, laid bare. Bulma, undressed. Bulma, bent over the console of the GR as Vegeta's hands skimmed her waist and tread the curvature of her hips as he bent over her, his chest plate pressing her against the console, his warm lips causing her to shiver as he told her he was going to make her cum using just his mouth. 'You're just going to have to trust me,' he chuckled ominously against the silky arc where her neck met shoulder.

Quickly, dumbly, she slapped the light switch down, the cool darkness of the closet relieving her somewhat, before she sunk farther into the closet.

_What are you doing, Briefs? You're acting totally paranoid!_

She reached out and snatched it. The medallion fit almost perfectly into her palm, its presence cold and heavy and sobering in her hand, and she glanced once more at the door to Vegeta's room uncertainly, crouched against the cool wall, Vegeta's jeans lying on her lap.

_I'm just curious. No harm done._

She ran her thumb over it and felt writing. Indeed, there was some illegible scirpt around the edges. The bold face of Oozaru etched in its center roared out at her, chips of ruby glaring at her from its Saiyan Royal symbol had been imprinted in bronze over one of the apes shoulders; a twisted, barbed crown hovered over the other.

Bulma delicately placed it back where she found it and hung the jeans up before walking across the room and closing the door behind her quietly.

She had finally slipped up.

Blaspheming against the surly Saiyan Prince who had found some sort of surreal comfort dominating her in bed.

She had started to care.

* * *

She understood his body better than anyone. She could pick apart the deadly infections, the Saiyan brogue that set his katas apart from Goku's, the relaxed lilt which talked to her own with a language of deep, unforgiving desire.

That's why, when he looked up from the small jewlery box with stormy rancor, she built a wall between her and her emotions as fast as she could. Her senses screamed at her to run.

"I'm sorry, I presumed too much," she admitted tonelessly, protecting herself from the trust crumbling and dissolving right before her eyes. "I'll leave you alone."

She tried not to pay attention to that sinking feeling in her gut that told her she'd pushed him too far, the awareness that she had just made a dangerous enemy, one which knew all her weaknesses.

* * *

_"What is it you want from me?" He pleaded with Zarbon as the shape shifting ass kisser wrapped his hand around his neck and squeeeezed._

_"Nothing," Zarbon replied sweetly._

_Vegeta struggled to gasp air into his lungs through Zarbon's fingers, his nostrils flaring, the dots indicating he was going to lose consciousness speckled in his vision. He thrashed in Dodoria and Nappa's grip, and the same voice that always arrived at times like these asked him the same question it always had: 'Why bother.'_

_Nothing made sense in this place. It was a dream he couldn't wake up from. Logic hid no matter how barren the bunker, no matter how eviscerated the planet, no matter how punishing the cell. Logic fled as soon as he was handed over to Frieza. Soldiers were ruled by the desire for power instead of the desire for pride in one's skill. Everybody's values here were topsy turvy. And no matter how strongly he held on to his legacy, his memory of a life with pride slowly eroded, encroached upon, bit into with the unyielding force of the momentary cessation of the sea._

_"Vegeta," Zarbon crooned, Dodoria and Nappa's faces filling the void behind him."I want you to be nothing."_

_"Vegeta," they sang his name, before laughing cheerily._

_"Vegeta," his name, ringing, but this time in a more feminine lilt. "Vegeta, you're okay."_

_"I'm not nothing," he rasped against Zarbon's grip._

_"Trust me, you're okay!"_

_He felt a warm hand on his forehead, and he flinched._

_Instead of pain, however...he felt relief._

_Zarbon's hold weakened exponentially._

_Zarbon's eyes widened, and Vegeta relished the rare expression of surrprise from Frieza's first-in-command._

_"You're okay. You're safe," the voice cajoled, and Vegeta noticed with some trepidation that Zarbon's mouth wasn't moving. Dodoria and Nappa struggled to find the source behind him, their hold on him just...vanishing._

_"You're nothing!" Zarbon shrieked, offended. "Who are you?!"_

_"Yeah right, pretty boy," the feminine voice retorted. "You don't scare me."_

_"What's going on here," a silky voice echoed from beyond, and they all froze in fear, a knee jerk response that never grew tired._

_"I want him dead," Frieza informed them all tranquilly as he made his way to Vegeta's side. "I want him ground into dust. I want him to be no thing, nothing but microscopic dust floating in space just like his lousy planet, just like his father!" His shrill command battered their ears. "I'm the one with the power! I desire you dead; so die!"_

_"You can't have him," the feminine voice growled firmly, and Vegeta knew without a doubt that he wanted to crawl up into the voice, curl his tail around himself and fall asleep._

_Vegeta watched as Frieza and his lackey's faces fell, and then diminished, Frieza grabbing one last time at Vegeta's wrist before it slipped, and then Vegeta floated in darkness with only the stars for comfort._

_This was familiar. The womb of space. He let out a little chuckle as he stretched his arms and legs. Space was surprisingly warm, cozy. He curled himself up into it, it was fleshy and supple. He closed his eyes and burrowed his face into the yielding heat as his body descended, his stomach dropping as he broke the atmosphere and fell through the sky._

_His smile grew wider as the ground rapidly approached. Finally, raw earth, not the titanium of space ships, not Cold Space, not the ravaged landscape of a planet he had laid bare._

_A thought drifted by, and he checked it lazily._

_He could slow his fall. With his ki._

_But Vegeta had no desire to._

_He wanted to meet the earth head on._

_He was finally freed._

_As the earth came careening closer, the blades of grass, a striking turquoise, became near enough to distinguish, Vegeta's eyes flew open._

_And met a deep, sapphire gaze._

_"Vegeta," she sighed, and it was that same voice. Bulm-_

_His chest heaved and he gulped in ear, his eyes flashing back and forth over his surroundings, his body regaining its own volition too slowly for his own comfort. His room -the darkness meant night- his head in her lap._

_He jumped away quickly._

_"What are you doing?" He shouted, backing away from her on wobbly legs._

_Her troubled eyes regarded him tiredly._

_"You were having a nightmare. I was trying to wake you."_

_"Get out! Go! Scram!" He yelled, nearly out of control, his voice rising, trembling in the thick silence of the night._

_Bulma's face paled. "I'm sorry for entering you room, but you were screaming the house awake again, I couldn't just take it sitting-"_

_She was like an apparition, dainty hands folded in her lap on his bed, legs crossed, her oversized shirt riding up on her hips, and instead of feeling lust, he just felt contentment-_

_"I can't take it! I can't stand you! Get OUT!" He roared, firing a small burst of blue energy at the wall beside her head, near enough to the side of her face to singe hair._

_Her eyes widened. "Fine!" She shrieked._

_Vegeta stood in the center of his room, chest heaving, eyes scouring the room for danger. "I'm the one with the power!"_

_The only thing he found was the scent of the woman pawing at his skin, a vision of blue grass waving in a warm breeze, and the emptiness Bulma had left when she had gone._

* * *

Bulma's eyelids snapped open, and she blinked, peering into the darkness.

She glanced at the clock. _1:32_. She hadn't been asleep very long. So why was it she was suddenly wide awake?

Bulma sat up abruptly in bed, the covers falling around her waist, and came face to face with her Saiyan houseguest.

He stood just inside her French doors, the early summer breeze ruffling his hair, a silhouette against the moonlight which doused her bedroom in a mercurial monochrome.

He began plucking his gloves from his fingers, tossing them on to a nearby chair. He lifted his breastplate over his head, tossing it carelessly onto the floor, and pulled off his suit top, his muscles tensing and rippling in the moonlight. He stepped out of his boots and pushed his pants over his hips, his quads twitching, his calves flexing as he pulled them off his legs.

Bulma tensed as he slid into bed beside her, resting his forehead against the back of her head. They laid there in the thick silence.

"Why did you give me this?" He finally asked.

Vegeta's arm draped over her body and she felt him press something into her palm.

Cool metal, the ring she had had made for him, sitting squarely, innocently in her hand.

Her throat tightened.

"What do you want me to say," she replied defensively, mouth drawing into a thin line.

"The truth."

"I just wanted to give you something...that reminded you of home...and what you're working for...and...and," she continued lamely, "something that reminded you of hope," she finished under her breath.

"You found the _ilyzaki_ in my closet."

"What?"

"The medal. Right?"

She nodded. "I was just putting your clothes away I'm sorry I really shouldn't have touched your things-"

"Quit apologizing," he growled.

Bulma's mouth snapped close.

"The _ilyzaki_ is passed down from generation to generation of royal heirs. It's the only thing I have left of my legacy, since I no longer even have my tail." Vegeta's eyes slid to the side uncertainly. "I was taken by surprise when you gave me the ring. It was a forward advance, but as always, you are irritatingly bold. It was a reminder of some things I had...buried...the empire I will never have...the legend I'm ever thousands of light years away from. I thought at first you were mocking me," he explained with unusual, quiet patience, "and then I realized you were being nice."

She turned toward him and peered into his eyes, which stood out even in the darkness.

"You're not used to nice. I understand."

Vegeta's face twisted with agitation and thoughtfulness, and she began to apologize, when he cut her off.

"I want you to have it."

Her brows knitted with confusion. "Have what?"

"You're so dense sometimes," he snapped. "The _ring_, woman!"

"Oh." Her eyes widened. "Wait, why?"

Without warning, he rested his hand on her jaw and kissed her, the soft give of her lips relenting. With her invitation, he parted his lips and gently pressed his tongue against hers, which she countered with hers instinctively.

He pulled away, meeting her eyes briefly before looking away. "I don't know why." Before she could question him further, he pulled her in close, her cheek pressed against his chest, her eyelashes tickling him faintly.

"I am not a man with much to give," he explained gruffly. "I cannot even give you a promise that I will be here tomorrow. But...I need to prove to someone that I am my own man. And what better person than you?" He admitted soberly.

His hand trailed down her side, over the tumulous of her curves, pulling back slowly to gaze into her eyes as he gently parted her legs, and they both waited for the other to acquiesce.

She ran her hand over his cheekbones, her fingertips brushing the inner spiral of his ear, his coarse hair at the nape of his neck. Her thumb traced his eyebrows, down his sharply defined nose, over his unresisting lips as his weight relaxed against her. She moved quickly to kiss them.

Drawing his face into hers from between her hands, she pressed her lips again to his, parting her lips to swirl her tongue around his own, gently nipping his bottom lip, sucking on the tip of his tongue.

He drew her hand away from his face and pinned it above her head.

He kissed her again, paralyzing her under the strength of his sincerity and leaning on the arm that held her wrists at bay as his other hand trailed down her thigh and over her silky pubis, grazing the backs of his knuckles against her nether lips. She moaned into his mouth and he moved his hand up the planes of her stomach, over her ribs and around her breasts, kneading them as he positioned himself at her entrance.

He looked at her then, his face, blank, but his eyes unusually open.

Vulnerable.

He was waiting for permission this time.

She kissed him hard on the mouth, and reached between their legs, grabbing him and guiding him inside her.

The first thrust was breathless, mouths agape, staring at each other. Upon filling her totally, she broke their eye contact by pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth, to his jaw, and then to his chin with feverish intensity. He folded his hand around hers before plunging back inside her.

She wrapped her legs around his lean hips, rubbing her smooth legs over his muscle-dimpled sides, planting her heels against the dent where his lower back met his rear end, where his tail had once curled protectively around his waist.

Vegeta quickened his pace, and she lost herself in it. Lips to hungry lips, her fingers clutching his, their sweat making her legs slide over his broad back, burying her hands in his hair and kissing him recklessly, wide open and wandering, sucking at his lips and burying it deep into his own to challenge his unrivaled passion with her unveiled desire, urging his hips on with her heels as he rocked between her legs, filling his hand up with her breasts as if they were treasure, burying his head against her chest like a man come for respite from a long voyage, urging him to leave his baggage in the waters and surface, to breach the crest of the waves and see the sunlight, for the first time, open his eyes to the sunlight, to the golden light that poured over everything, that poured over them, blessing them...

"Vegeta," she cried out breathlessly, sinking her nails into his shoulders as he hiked up her leg from underneath her knee, draping it over his arm and rocking against her-

He ran his thumb over her parted lips, her fine teal hair glinting in the moonlight, in the gold light, her eyes closed in rapture as she pumped against him, sending her hips upwards to melt into his. "Bulma," he exhaled, their breaths and hips in sync, their bodies moving to a music only they could hear, and then, as she cried out, clutching him to her, he met her gasps with his own, and her walls came tumbling down around him, milking his essence from him and he let her have it, and he growled "Bulma" against the darkness and watched her with his teal eyes as she let out an escalating cry and if he could only give her his body then that's what he would do and he breathed her name against her lips against the darkness.

* * *

Bulma rested her forehead against the window heavily, twisting the ring around her finger, looking out at the green expanse of the grounds of Capsule Corps, where the flattened grass from Capsule 4 now lay open to the sun. Her thighs were still slick with their actions from last night, and a sigh escaped her, fogging the glass momentarily.

If he had chosen to chase his desires out of the darkness, then she would wait for him, at the edge of the light.


End file.
